Employees Facing Economic Uncertainty

It’s no secret that employees are facing economic uncertainty. On top of the financial challenges brought on by the pandemic, Americans are now experiencing never-before-seen inflation rates. Cost-stressors have had employees fleeing their jobs in search of new roles with higher salaries, leaving businesses scrambling to find new ways to both attract and retain top talent.

New Talent Strategies

With the aftershocks of the Great Resignation still echoing, employers are doing anything and everything they can to better attract and retain employees. These strategies have ranged from simple (like extending their work from home policies) to extravagant (think overseas company offsites that are more vacation than work). While each company finds their footing and begins to understand what best attracts and retains their target employees, it’s interesting to see what new methods of talent A&R employers come up with.

Recently, inflation is playing a big part in many A&R strategies. Employers know that their employees are likely feeling the pain of inflation in their daily lives, and are looking to new ways to help ease this struggle. Rising costs and other contributing factors are causing many employers to look to earned wage access (EWA) cards as part of their talent strategy to bring in new and retain existing workers, says a report by Robin Arnfield for Employee Benefit News.

“Earned wage access”– sometimes called daily pay benefit, early wage access, instant pay, or on-demand pay– gives employees the opportunity to access money they’ve made before their scheduled payment date.

Why EWA is Gaining Traction

Besides inflation, another facet of this new adoption of EWA is being fueled by competition faced by employers from the gig economy businesses (such as Lyft, Uber, and DoorDash) where people can receive instant payouts for work completed. Offering EWA is turning out to be a great talent attraction and retention strategy for employers. In the previously mentioned article from EBN, they point to OTG Management as an example. OTG, which partners with Ceridian for payroll, says they provide their employers with a Dayforce Wallet EWA card.

The VP of human resources at OTG, Alan House, said in the report, “When we recruit at our career fairs, we mention Dayforce Wallet, and we tell new staff during their orientation about the service. We get a lot of excited individuals when they hear about the Dayforce Wallet card.”

OTG began using the cards in the US and Canada in 2021. And since then, it’s been adopted by 50% of hourly workers in the US and 30% for Canadian workers. Since August of 2021, House says there’s been a 131% increase in usage in the US.

EWA and Beyond

As it turns out, offering Earned Wage Access is proving to be a strong talent attraction and retention strategy. With inflation leading to increased prices across the board, many employees are struggling to find the funds to pay for gas for their car, groceries for their family, rent, and other utilities. Earned Wage Access empowers employees to access their money when they need it most, helping many stay afloat during the current economic turmoil.

In a time of widespread economic uncertainty, employees want to work for companies that have their back. Implementing EWA can truly have a meaningful impact on talent attraction and retention, and it’s exciting to how the concept continues to grow in coming years.